Serena needed to be better prepared to figure out a way to explain things to her mother that wouldn’t upset her more. At the same time, she also needed to make sure she didn’t end up caving and agreeing to leave Stanford just to make Genevieve happy. Because somehow, some way, she hoped the two of them could find some middle ground. A place where Serena could thrive by following her dreams without leaving her mother disappointed and angry. Unfortunately, where that middle place was, she didn’t yet have a clue.

“These pictures and what they wrote about us will really upset her.”

“Can’t you just explain how the pictures were taken totally out of context and that they made up the rest?”

“I hope so. I just need to think about how I’m going to do that.” Of course, the problem with waiting was that it would only give her mother more time to fuel her flames of fury over the recent decisions Serena had made. In her frustration, she didn’t think before saying, “It was all so normal. We walked like normal people. We talked like normal people. We had pizza like normal people. And now—” She looked down at his phone. “—this.”

“You keep talking about wanting to be normal.” He looked confused. “But I don’t get why would you want to be anything other than as extraordinary as you are?”

She wished she’d learned enough in her English classes already to have the right words to explain things to him. To her mom, too. When she didn’t answer him because she didn’t know how, she could read his frustration loud and clear. She expected him to keep hammering away at her until she explained why she was such a freak.

But instead of pressuring her, he simply said, “If you want normal, I’ll give you normal.”

It was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her, and her surprise at his offer—one that showed he already understood so much more about her than anyone else ever had—made her momentarily speechless.

“As soon as I get back to my frat house, I’m going to set everyone straight about us so that they know this story is bogus and that we’re just friends. I’ll make sure they spread the word.”

“That’s great,” and he was too, “but we couldn’t even go get pizza together without it making the national news.”

“You said you were starting to trust me, right?” When she nodded, he said, “So now how about you let me actually be your friend.”

She wanted so badly to take everything he was offering at face value, but what if her mother was right? What if all men did was use and lie and hurt?

“Why would you want to do this for me?”

“In the past year, since we found out my mom was sick, it’s been…” He swallowed hard and looked away for a moment. “It’s been pretty rough.” He brought his gaze back to hers and held her spellbound in his green depths. “But when I’m with you, I forget to feel bad.”

Everything he said was so sweet, and so heartfelt, that as all her fears temporarily fell away, she couldn’t keep from saying, “When I’m with you, I forget about all the craziness, too.”

He grinned at her. “Does this mean you’re going to let me show you what it’s like to be a normal college student?”

Maybe she was being crazy to open herself up to him like this, but her heart was whirling and twirling around inside her chest too fast for her to do anything but smile back at him and say, “Yes.”

As they stood there smiling at each other outside the library, amazingly, what she felt between them was as powerful as his kiss had been at the party. Only, this time she wanted to be the one to pull him against her so that she could kiss him.

The thought had barely passed through her brain when his expression suddenly heated and his gaze dropped to her lips. She could almost taste his mouth on hers when he drew back.

“You weren’t done in the library, were you?”

Swallowing her disappointment, she said, “Not quite.”

“How about I walk you back inside?”

“Okay,” she agreed, before she decided to be brave and add, “but only if you’ll take me down to the photo archives and show me around first.”

When he’d mentioned his interest in the archives to her upstairs, she’d been more than a little surprised—though if anyone should know better than to take someone at face value, it should be her. Sure, Sean Morrison was a sizzling hot baseball player and frat boy. But just because that was all he normally let people see, didn’t mean that was all there was to him.

And the truth was she was so drawn to him that when he let her in, even just that little bit, she couldn’t help but want to see more of the real Sean.

Only, when his eyes immediately filled with grief at the mere mention of the archives, she belatedly realized that she’d pushed in exactly the wrong place. He looked that same way every time he spoke of his mother, and she felt her own heart swell beneath her breastbone in empathy with his pain.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, desperately wishing she’d never opened her big mouth in the first place. “You don’t have to show me anything. I can go take a look by myself some other time.”

But instead of agreeing that they should forget all about it, he squeezed her hand tighter and said, “Actually, I want to take you down there.”

“Are you sure?”

His eyes met hers, dark and serious and sweet all at the same time. “You’re trusting me to give you normal, so I’m going to trust you with this.”

Yet again, she felt the intense pull toward him that had been there right from the very first moment they’d met on the dance floor. It would be the easiest thing in the world to kiss him, but at the same time it wouldn’t be right. Not yet. Not when they were still getting to know each other, just starting to trust each other.

He was silent as they began to walk back toward the library and she didn’t push him to tell her about the last time he’d been into the archives. Not when it already felt like he’d given her so much of himself just by agreeing to take her there.

How much deeper would he let her go?

As the question bounced around inside her head, she was shocked to realize that she was, for the very first time in her life, actually starting to lower her walls around a guy. The fact that it was coming on the heels of a tabloid story about the two of them...well, maybe that was crazy. But then, so was the fact that she knew she’d pull it up on her phone later, if only to study the pictures of the two of them together more closely.